www.mercurynews.com

Posted on Tue, Aug. 23, 2005



Assembly speaker makes very public trip to Mexico
LAWMAKER ARRANGES PRIVATE MEETING WITH PRESIDENT FOX
By Aaron C. Davis
Mercury News Sacramento Bureau

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger is seldom upstaged, but it could happen Thursday when one of his chief legislative rivals flies south of the border to hold private meetings with Mexican President Vicente Fox.

Assembly Speaker Fabian Núñez said he plans to make the trip -- and miss one of the few legislative sessions remaining this year -- in an attempt to repair relations with California's largest trading partner. Schwarzenegger has been sharply criticized by Mexican media and politicians for supporting private border patrols to curb illegal immigration.

``The tension between the governor and the Mexican government began to boil after his comments about closing the border and supporting the Minutemen. Those things really cemented the idea that I needed to go to Mexico,'' Núñez said. ``I grew up there, I lived there for eight years as a child and I speak the language fluently. I am the perfect person to build a bridge between Mexico and California.''

Filling a vacuum

But with the special election in November approaching, the trip also has a political dimension and could serve to rally the state's Latino voters to oppose the governor's ballot initiatives.

``The governor has spent very little time in Mexico and the speaker is filling the vacuum,'' said Jaime Regalado, who directs the Pat Brown Institute of Public Affairs at California State University-Los Angeles. ``This trip and the meeting with President Fox, it takes something away from Arnold. All things that lead to a weakened governor will have some effect on the November special election.''

Schwarzenegger's press secretary Margita Thompson dismissed that notion.

``We have robust binational discussions,'' Thompson said. ``We are bound to Mexico by ties of culture, commerce and family . . . and the governor has a wonderful relationship with the border governors.''

Fox and Schwarzenegger were scheduled to meet in December. Thompson said Fox canceled that meeting because of a scheduling conflict. She added the two would meet when their schedules next allowed for it. A spokesman for the Mexican Consulate in Sacramento, who has met with Schwarzenegger twice, echoed that sentiment. Thompson pointed to the governor's first trip to Mexico last month, when he attended a private dinner with border governors from both countries, as evidence he is engaged and working on immigration issues. Thompson noted that two of the governor's representatives were in Washington on Monday discussing the state's border patrol issues with the head of the Department of Homeland Security.

Good, bad relations

The Núñez trip is ``fine,'' Thompson said. ``Anything that we can do to cultivate national ties is a good thing.''

California's ties to Mexico have blown hot and cold over the past decade. Relations soured when Gov. Pete Wilson supported Proposition 187, a 1994 California ballot initiative that denied schooling and social services to illegal residents. Relations improved under Gov. Gray Davis, who instituted a yearly state visit between the California governor and the Mexican president.

Several Assembly speakers -- including the recently elected mayor of Los Angeles, Antonio Villaraigosa -- have made trips to Mexico during their terms, but the timing of Núñez's trip has fanned criticism. Núñez plans to skip Thursday's Assembly session and meet with Fox in Mexico City. On Friday he will meet with Mexican legislators and business leaders and return Saturday night.

Karen Hanretty, spokeswoman for the California Republican Party, said Núñez's trip is nothing more than a political stunt before the Nov. 8 election.

``It's political grandstanding for Fabian Núñez to go to Mexico and talk about jobs, the economy and border security when he has absolutely no standing in California to do so,'' she said. ``He has done nothing to indicate that he believes illegal immigration is a problem.''

Núñez said the criticism was misdirected. ``There's no, at least where I'm coming from, effort to undermine the governor. It's simply an invitation that we have been working on for a while and this is the right time. The last thing we need right now is a bad relationship with our greatest trade partner.''